At daybreak on October 12, the ships approached what turned out to be a small island; the boats were lowered and the Admiral and most of the sailors went ashore. The expedition had reached land in the Bahamas, at an island its natives called Guanahani. It was long thought to have been what is now called Cat Island, but it has since become generally accepted as being the neighboring San Salvador. At any rate, it is on San Salvador, or Watling Island, that today stands a monument to the discovery of the New World.
The crews, confident that this exotic tropical island was indeed the object of their journey, went wild with excitement. The officers embraced Columbus, while the sailors threw themselves at his feet, asking for pardon, begging him to forgive their lack of faith. “. . . All having rendered thanks to Our Lord, kneeling on the ground, embracing it with tears of joy for the immeasurable mercy of having reached it, the Admiral rose and gave the island the name of San Salvador.”
The entire proceedings were watched from a safe distance by a crowd of natives who had at first fled in terror as these white strangers came ashore. But their curiosity soon overcame their fears, and they began to approach the Spaniards. Encouraged by the sailors, they gradually came close enough to touch the white men; soon they began to exchange gifts and some sort of conversation got underway.
Columbus described this meeting with the people of Guanahani: “They all go naked as their mothers bore them, and the women also . . . they are very well built . . . their hair is coarse, almost like the hair of a horse’s tail, and short . . . they are the color of the people of the Canaries, neither black nor white . . . they do not bear arms or know of them, for I showed them swords, and they took them by the blade and cut themselves through ignorance . . . I saw some who had scars on their bodies and I asked them by signs . . . and they indicated to me that people came form neighboring islands to capture them . . .”
Columbus would much rather have encountered sophisticated Orientals than these simple Arawak who lived in mortal fear of their neighbors, the Carib; but Columbus also quickly observed “how easy it would be to convert these people – and to make them work for us.” And indeed, slave labor was to become an early institution everywhere in Spanish America; every Spaniard seems to have concluded from the first reports that no white man would ever have to do a day’s work in this world. God had already provided docile natives to do such labor in return for having their souls saved.
The white men spent the next two days exploring San Salvador. It proved to be a lush tropical island, unlike anything they had ever seen, but Columbus was well aware that he better bring back evidence of Oriental splendor, preferably in the form of gold and spices. And since all the natives indicated that many more islands lay to the west and south, Columbus was reassured that this was the way to Japan or even China. With six Indios who had been persuaded to act as guides, the ships spent ten more days cruising among the Bahama Islands. Soon everyone was convinced that they had indeed reached the ocean just east of Cathay, for Marco Polo had described it as being dotted with many spice islands, some of which were supposed to be inhabited by naked savages.
All the islands, however, were similar to San Salvador – all were covered with tropical jungle and most were inhabited by naked Indians. All the natives were extremely friendly and hospitable, happily trading their modest possessions for the white men’s glass beads, little red caps, and the popular brass bells which European falconers tied to their hunting birds. The Spaniards encountered the first maize ever seen by Europeans, hammocks woven from native cotton, yams and sweet potatoes, and a variety of plants none had ever seen before. But Louis de Torres, the interpreter, found his Arabic completely useless everywhere, and the only signs of gold were found in a few ornaments worn by some of the people. Yet the Indian guides kept assuring Columbus that on the next island there would be plenty of that yellow metal the white men seemed so anxious to find, and on each island the natives always pointed to the south as the source of their gold.
Here the Spaniards met for the first time with a habit which later explorers found to be almost universal among all of America’s natives, and which was to have great consequences for many expeditions. However impressed and awed they were initially by the white strangers, however anxious they were to get the wondrous goods these strangers had brought with them, sooner or later these Indians became uneasy with their presence. Invariably, the natives then adopted the simple technique of finding out what these white men were looking for – and invariably it was gold – and then telling them that it was found somewhere further on. And the white men, always anxious to hear and believe what they expected to hear, were usually taken in.
Columbus was no exception; he was looking for a big island with an Oriental civilization, and soon his Indian guides were telling him that there was such an island to the west; they called Colba, and Columbus decided that this must be Japan at last. On October 25, as the ships took off in the indicated direction, Columbus wrote in his journal: “I am about to set sail for another great island which must be Cipango if I judge rightly from what the Indians aboard tell me; they call it Colba and say that there are many ships there . . . My plan, then, is to go to the mainland and to the city of Quinsay to present the letters from your Majesties to the Great Khan and bring back his reply.”
Three days later the ships anchored along a beautiful coastline that stretched in both directions as far as they could see. Although there was still no sign of any cities or civilization, Columbus was already convinced that they had reached Cipango. So certain was he, in fact, that when he tried to talk with the amazed natives, he somehow interpreted their gestures to mean that this was a part of the Asiatic mainland; not only that, but he also arrived at the conclusion that there was a native king who was at war with none other than the Great Khan himself. This land, of course, was no part of Asia, nor was it even any part of a mainland. The Spaniards had arrived on the island of Cuba.